Pastor's Paragraph, 10/9/2018

Dear Church Family,Sunday night we looked at the devastating effect of evangelical churches being top-heavy in age. We have failed to produce disciples seeing less and less young people become followers of Christ. On average 68% percent of the giving within a church comes from people 55 or older. The net effect of this is that churches experience debilitating financial strain as each older person passes away or is restricted by health issues. FBCBC is a microcosm of this reality playing out across America. The church of the future must get back on mission, winning people to Christ and training them to win others, while operating on a more efficient and less dollar dependent ministry model. Join us as we begin to discuss the framework of these models and how we can adapt to be a church for the future.

Psalm 103 is a psalm celebrating the great forgiveness of God. No one has hope is God is unwilling to forgive. No one has hope without the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ. If God dealt with each one of us on our merits the result would be eternal damnation. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” (v. 10) God extends mercy and grace beyond the bounds of our sins and beyond what we can even imagine. He has stricken his son, Jesus, so as to keep from striking us. Why, O Lord, would you love me (us) at such a depth? Through the sacrifice of Jesus, God removes our sin “as far as the east is from the west” (v. 12) making sure we will never be rightfully condemned for it. Christ died for me. Christ died for you. To experience such forgiveness brings a total heart transformation and an evident life change to the one who receives it. Have you been transformed? Is there evident life change in you?

FBCBC is where the “impossible” is a living reality everyday and we are about Connecting Christ to people. Invite 3 to come connect, celebrate and contribute to what God is doing at FBCBC.